About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

'Almost 700 executions in Iran in 2011'

On the same day that the special UN investigator presented his report, two men were publicly hanged in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad. The two had been convicted three months ago for their part in 13 cases of rape.

Iran executed some 670 people last year, most of them for drug crimes that
do not merit capital punishment under international law and more than 20
for offences against Islam. A special United Nations investigator, former
Maldives foreign minister Ahmed Shaheed, reported that on Monday while presenting his first report to the U.N.'s 47-nation Human Rights
Council.
Shaheed also reported 'a wide range of violations by Iran of U.N. human rights accords, from
abuse of minorities to persecution of homosexuals and labor unions'. Shaheed's office and mandate were established last year by a narrow vote in the
council when Western and Latin American countries, with some African
support, joined to create a special investigation on Iran. Cuba, Russia,
China
and others opposed the resolution. Iran has refused to allow him into
the country. In the council on Monday it described him as "incompetent".
Shaheed said to report 'with great concern' a significant increase in the rate of executions
in Iran, from 200 in mid-September 2011 to over 600 executions by the
end of the year. His report showed that by December 31, 421 executions had
been officially announced and 249 secret ones had been reported to him
by sources inside and outside the country. A table in his report
showed executions had soared steadily to near 700 from just
under 100 in 2003. In 2010, it was around 550.
The report of the UN-investigator concurs largely with the annual report
that the Iran Human Rights published on 4 March. IHR said that at least
676 people were executed in 2011, 416 of which (62%) had been announced by the Iranian authorities. It also said that 65 of the executions were carried out in public. According to IHR the number of executions carried out publicly in 2011 in Iran is more
than three times higher than the average in the previous years.
Shaheed,
a long-time diplomat and founder of a human rights institute in the
Maldives, told a news
conference that even among those officially executed for drug offences
there were strong indications that many had originally been arrested for
resisting the regime or similar offences and had the narcotics charges
added later.
Iran dismissed the report as a "compilation of baseless
allegations".